


Mr. Sandman, Bring Me A Dream

by Pixeled



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Body Horror, Chosen Mate Experiment, Experimentation, F/M, Femme Fatale, Manipulation, Manipulative Lucrecia, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:49:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixeled/pseuds/Pixeled
Summary: Lucrecia did have a brilliant mind, and perhaps that was part of the problem. Because she was manipulative too. She was used to getting what she wanted, and if she didn’t get it, she could be a viper. And being a woman—it wasn’t something to overcome as he had thought, but leverage she used to tear a man apart.
Relationships: Lucrecia Crescent/Grimoire Valentine, Lucrecia Crescent/Hojo/Vincent Valentine, Lucrecia Crescent/Vincent Valentine
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	Mr. Sandman, Bring Me A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated birthday, Vincent! I wrote you something you’re not going to like. Happy 70th, you old dog!

_Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream  
Make her the cutest that I've ever seen.  
Give her two lips like roses and clover.  
And tell her that her lonely nights are over._

  
There was a knock on the lab door. Grimoire looked at the clock hung high above the blackboard. He hadn’t been expecting the new assistant for twenty minutes, but he wasn’t expecting anybody else, and for good reason. This was his space. One might consider his lab a lonely place, and him to be a lonely man, but to him, it was his sanctuary, his respite from the constant movement and too loud sound of the world—the world where nothing made sense. How could anything make sense anymore? What could anything out there offer him? His wife was dead, and he’d driven his only son so far away with his anger and pain that he had no idea where he was in the world. The only place that made sense was here. In the field collecting specimens. Hunting. Constantly doing so that his head felt full. If his head wasn’t full of details and equations and scripts for lectures and plans for several dozen projects, he knew, in his heart, he would tilt his head back and unbottle like a genie’s lamp. Instead of wishes, his contents would be all ghosts and terrors and cancers and things that shouldn’t exist within this world where too much was already dark and gray, specters at every turn waiting for you in the corners and in the dark, grinning and crying in intervals in that way that chased small children away and made adults’ hearts break. There was too much heartbreak in the world, and he had held it in its raw form for many years, not letting go, putting so much pressure into it that it became a diamond, and for each facet there was a string that he was tied to like a marionette. He was that diamond, but that diamond was him. And the strings that controlled him made him move and talk and do but his eyes were glazed over, taken over by the shine of that diamond.

He was wearing a shield over a stark white laboratory coat, hunched over a mutating specimen. He’d been working on a cure. It was a virus and he’d been wearing a face mask and rubber gloves. He used the long forceps-like instrument to cover the sample. He placed it back in its liquid nitrogen home and pressed the rack back into its little hiding place, which looked, one had to admit, like a morgue.

“One moment!” Grimoire called out as he shed the protective equipment. He pushed it on the table to the side. He’d properly dispose of it for cleaning in a moment.

When he opened the door his hair was askew, plastered straight across his face.

His new lab assistant was the top of her class, considered to have potential off the charts, impeccable work ethic, but a “bit strange”, whatever that meant. 

With that description Grimoire did not expect what he was looking at. She must have been his son’s age. Maybe a few years older. But she was stunning. Long flowing chestnut hair pulled up into a long ponytail, beautiful brown eyes with barest flecks of hazel. Her lab coat was open, an attaché case to one side, and she was wearing a student badge along with a….very unscientific blouse and skirt. A pair of red heels topped it all off.

A woman’s woman in a man’s world of science. She’d come highly recommended, and looking at her, he knew how much bias she must have had had to overcome—would still, her whole career. He was often told he didn’t _look_ like a scientist, but that was a very small comment, one of little consequence. But to look the way this woman did and to be a scientist? There would be barriers. He’d have to teach her very carefully, give her a shield she could always rely on.

“Oh here, let me get that,” the young woman said with a soft laugh. She stood on the tiptoes of her heels and gently swept Grimoire’s hair aside to fix his fringe of hair. She collapsed into him. “Oh! I’m sorry!”

Grimoire held onto her longer than he should have. She smelled sweet, like flowers, but not overpowering. He’d have to tell her to stop wearing perfume in the lab. He finally righted her.

“Right. You are Lucrecia Crescent, my new assistant?” Grimoire asked.

“You’re taller than I expected. I mean they told me you were six foot four but I think I didn’t really believe them. I believe them now,” Lucrecia laughed.

“Yes, I am tall. Shall I show you the lab?” Grimoire was starting to see why she was “strange”.

“Wait! I made you something! Wanna see before the tour?”

Grimoire sighed. “I suppose. Did they tell you I was no nonsense, Ms. Crescent?”

“Ok! But!” She dragged out a glass blown Hydrogen model. “Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. With a standard atomic weight of 1.008, hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all baryonic mass.” She smiled. 

Grimoire took the thing, admired it. It was pretty. And he looked at Lucrecia, who was pretty as well. “You’ll do. Come.”

_Sandman, I'm so alone_

_Don't have nobody to call my own_

_Please turn on your magic beam_

_Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream_

_Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream_

_Make her the cutest that I've ever seen_

_Give her the word that I'm not a rover_

_And tell her that her lonely nights are over_

Vincent stood at parade rest in front of Lucrecia.

“Ms. Crescent, I am Vincent Valentine. I am assigned to your protection over the course of the project.”

Professor Hojo rolled his eyes, flicking papers back and forth on a clipboard.

“Yes, yes, our dog has a name, as all animals must. Little good that it does. They matter very little. Just like _you_ matter very little. Half the time it doesn’t listen or can’t recognize that it’s their name. I’ll be calling you ‘boy’, as it appears they’ve sent over a pretty little boy in a suit to cover up the beast inside.”

Then he was gone.

“Sorry about him,” Lucrecia whispered. “Did you say your last name was Valentine?” she asked, suddenly staring at him with a purpose. Vincent frowned.

“Is…there something not to your liking?” Vincent asked, looking down, then unclasping his hands and bringing them forward to adjust his tie and smooth his suit jacket.

“No! You look fine! Better than fine! I mean…I just….your eyes,” she whispered.

Vincent blinked.

“My eyes?”

The last thing he was thinking about was the color of his eyes even though people often called attention to them.

“They’re red…like….never mind. I have work to do. It was nice meeting you. Do you do anything fun?”

“Huh?” Vincent asked, caught off guard by that question.

“You know, like games or any hobbies?” Lucrecia smiled conspiratorially.

“I can make my thumb come off,” Vincent said, face deadpan as he performed the sleight of hand needed to make it look like he’d taken his thumb off. “But I play the piano and I saw there’s one in the foyer.”

Lucrecia came close to him and kissed his cheek.

“You’re cute, but you need to loosen up, Vincent. And I’ll see how well you play tonight, I guess. After dinner?” she whispered into his ear, unzipping his suit jacket and strolling away, hands behind her back. She turned back to smile coyly at him and he felt the strange weight of destiny settle over him.

_Oh, Sandman, I'm so alone_

_Don't have nobody to call my own_

_So please turn on your magic beam_

_Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream_

The first time it was a mistake. The second time it was a repetition of the same mistake, as if running another trial of an experiment that had failed the first time, and without altering the data, doing the same exact test expecting different results. The third time, it was like being caught in a carousel of shame.

They at least kept that separate from their work. For the most part. Lucrecia _did_ have a brilliant mind, and perhaps that was part of the problem. Because she was manipulative too. She was used to getting what she wanted, and if she didn’t get it, she could be a viper. And being a woman—it wasn’t something to overcome as he had thought, but leverage she used to tear a man apart.

Their discovery of Chaos was at once the greatest discovery of his career and the most terrible. There was no knowing what Lucrecia would do, what she would say, how the project would end. Chaos was volatile at best, just like their situation.

When he heard her say they were in a relationship and this would be a joint effort as a couple, he had yelled at her, and she ran away like a spooked deer, but he caught her.

“This is _not_ a relationship. You are not my lover. You are my _mistake.”_

“You don’t mean that, do you?” she asked, but she was smiling. Why would she be smiling?

When he lay dying, he realized the gravity of all the mistakes he’d made. The most grave mistake he’d made was letting her walk into his life.

Lucrecia held him in her arms.

“Oh, Dr. Valentine, you underestimated me,” she whispered, petting his hair back.

“Just….could you…I need to know….you’ll find my son….and tell him I love him…I didn’t tell him enough…”

He was dead before he could hear the answer.

_Oh, Sandman bring us a dream_

_Make her the cutest that I've ever seen_

_Give her two lips like roses and clover_

_And tell her that her lonely nights are over_

_Oh, Sandman, I'm so alone_

_Don't have nobody to call my own_

_So please turn on your magic beam_

_Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream_

“You knew my father?” Vincent asked, staring at the image of his father on the computer. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh, if you had been paying attention to more than this,” she said, parting her blouse a bit,”you’d have noticed. I picked you for this project,” Lucrecia smiled wickedly.

“W-what?” Vincent whispered.

“Valentine genes run very strong and the Department of Administrative Research was very willing to hand you over,” Lucrecia said. “But that won’t be a problem. The Jenova project will take care of that. He won’t look like you or your father. Perhaps certain features? But after he’s grown, it won’t matter. And I’ve got a very special role for you.”

“Lucrecia!”

_Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream_

_Make her the cutest that I've ever seen_

_Give her two lips like roses and clover_

_And tell her that her lonely nights are over_

  
The gunshot tore through him louder and harder than he expected.

He killed.

That’s what he did.

But he never thought about what it would feel like on the other side, to be shot, to be killed. It was always a possibility, but he’d always been so careful.

Snakes in the grass are more dangerous than anything else.

It hurt so much he almost forgot the betrayal that this whole project was. The orchestration. Professor Hojo and Lucrecia were perfect for one another.

He thought he would just die. When everything went black like heavy night all was silent.

But oh, no. It wasn’t that simple.

He felt his soul slam back into his body like a heavy stone. It wasn’t his any longer.

There were plans.

Plans that splattered the walls with his blood and tore screams from his lungs. He was able to look down and see into his chest. All of his organs were all in a line, and sewn back inside one by one. He screamed as Lucrecia sawed his arm off below the elbow, the sound of the serrated tool dragging back and forth through his flesh making him nauseous, especially as blood spurted everywhere. Her smile was wide and she was looking at him the whole time, covered in his blood. And he hated himself for thinking she looked beautiful covered in all the rich bright red of his blood. What he would have given for her. And how she had ruined him. And how she was smiling and waving with his hand as she chucked it in medical waste.

By the time everything was quiet, he slowly opened his eyes, expecting more horrors.

“Give me back my son!” Lucrecia was crying, but Hojo smiled at her.

“You were only a part of my plan, my dear.” He looked to Vincent . “Oh my, why he’s rotting away. We got such good use out of him, though, didn’t we? And be ‘we’ I mean ‘me’.”

And then he was gone. Lucrecia fell to her knees, then stood, approaching Vincent through the glass.

“I know what I have to do,” she said. “Chaos will save you. Those eyes. Your father had those eyes.”

Vincent drifted into silence again, that thick cloak of darkness falling over him.

When he woke again it was with a feeling he’d never felt before. Power beyond measure flowed through his veins, thrummed just beneath his breast. But he couldn’t open his eyes. Or were his eyes open and it was too dark?

He reached up, but he didn’t have to reach up very far. His hand thunked against something…..on top of him? He used both hands to push, and a lid slid off and hung down on its hinges. Black lacquer. He’d been laying in red velvet, with a pillow to match. He was in a coffin.

Gold-tipped sabatons covered black shoes. Leather pants covered his legs, a holster at his thigh. It even had his Quicksilver in it. Where his left arm used to be was now a golden monstrous clawed extremity. He could flex the fingers. How was he able to flex the fingers?

Draping him was a long red cloak, and when he looked down, long black hair slid in front of him. That couldn’t be right. His hair was short a moment ago.

Was it a moment?

Where was he?

How long had he been here?

All around him the dead danced in repose.

He screamed out for Lucrecia but there was no answer save for the scattering of bats.

_Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream._


End file.
